Dorothy Garlock - [Route 66] (4 page)

Mr. Luker had near-black hair brushed back from his forehead, wide shoulders, big hands and narrow hips. Except for the slightly chipped front tooth, he was a grown-up version of his son, Jody. Warm brown eyes settled on Margie. Knowing that Elmer would not introduce her, she held out her hand.

“Margie Kinnard. Elmer’s daughter.”

He gripped her hand and gave her a friendly smile. “Foley Luker. Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”

Sugar’s eyes narrowed. She gripped the front of her husband’s shirt with a tight fist to bring his attention back to her.

Margie glanced back at Jody and his sister. They stood together beside the trailer they were unloading. He was talking urgently to her, his back shielding her from the others. Margie decided then and there that she would keep her distance from Sugar. She had seen her kind before. The woman was trouble.

“What are the other folks like, Ma?”

“I’m not sure yet, son.” Grace stood beside her son’s chair with her hand on his shoulder. “Mr. Luker’s wife isn’t much older than his kids. The boy is seventeen or thereabout, I’d guess. He’s tall like his pa. The girl is younger by a year or two. Something’s not quite right there. Mrs. Luker said to call her Sugar, as if I would. She bosses the kids around like she was queen of the May. She wasn’t at all kind to the girl while I was there. I guess they’d had a set-to. The girl had been crying.”

“Pa said Mr. Luker married recently. His new wife talked him into selling his ice business. She’s the one who wants to go to California.”

“Would you like to walk around for a while?”

“Do you mind if we wait until dark?”

“Now, son, I’ve told you this a hundred times.” Grace knew what was in her son’s mind. “Bein’ blind ain’t nothin’ to be ashamed of. You can do some things better than some folks that can see.”

“Stop kiddin’ yourself, Ma. I can’t even go to the outhouse unless Pa takes me.”

“Not in a strange place, but you did when we were home. You will again. We’ll get a place where you’ll learn your way around, and you’ll have a job on the radio singin’ and playin’ your own songs. I just know it.”

Rusty chuckled. “My mother the eternal optimist.”

“Optimist? What’s that? Oh, never mind. That’s one of them words you learned from that high-toned teacher.”

“Is it dark?”

“It’s dark enough. Let’s walk to the road and back. Do you want your cane?”

“No.” Rusty placed his hand on his mother’s shoulder and walked beside her. They made a wide circle around the Luker camp. Blackie ran ahead, enjoying the scents he found along the way.

“Margie already knows that you can’t see. She seems nice. I wonder why her pa didn’t tell Alvin that he was bringing her along?”

“Maybe she didn’t decide to come along until the last minute.”

“I’m glad she did. She’s someone we can visit with. I doubt Mrs. Luker will want to have much to do with us.”

“Don’t be pushing me on Margie.” Rusty’s voice was stern.

“What a thing to say! I wouldn’t do such a thing!”

He laughed and squeezed the shoulder beneath his hand. “You don’t fool me for a minute, Mother mine.”

“I’m not trying to fool you,” she protested. “I just want you to know people your age and—”

“Girls,” he interrupted. “You want me to have a girl.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“You know what’s wrong.”

“You … could be friends.”

“Women don’t want to be just
friends
with a man, Ma. They want a husband who can take care of them. How would I take care of a wife? I can’t take care of myself.”

“You will. When we get to California, you’ll get a job on the radio. Cousin Oletta says there’s a radio station in almost every town.”

“I hope that isn’t the only reason you and Pa pulled up stakes to go to California.”

“You know it isn’t. Your pa thinks he can start an ice business in California, where it’s warm all year long. Winters here in Missouri are cold, and folks don’t need ice from November to March. Blackie,” Grace called. “Come back here.”

“He isn’t bothering, Mrs. Putman,” Margie called. “He just came to say hello.”

“Ma?” Rusty hissed a warning.

“We’re out stretching our legs. A body stiffens up sitting in that truck all day.”

“Do you mind if I walk with you? I need to get the kinks out of my legs too.”

“Course not. We thought we’d walk out to the road and back. It’s more for my benefit than Rusty’s. A friend showed him how to stand in one place and run and how to use a bar to pull himself up and down. He did it every morning back home. Glory be. It made me tired just watching him. He worked in the icehouse helpin’ his pa and—”

“Ma! Margie doesn’t want to hear my life story.”

“Yes, I do,” Margie said quickly. “Then you’ll have to listen while I tell you about working in the café and about the time I paid a no-good man to take me to California and he stole my money. He left me stranded down in Oklahoma, and I had to come home with my tail between my legs.”

“Nothing that exciting has happened to me.” Rusty laughed again.

In spite of his blindness, he laughs easily, Margie thought before she turned her attention to what his mother was saying.

“How about the time you were playing your fiddle for a barn dance and a couple of drunks rode their horses right into the barn while you were calling a square? That was exciting.”

“Oh, no!” Margie exclaimed. “What happened?”

“Blackie took after the horses, nipping at their legs,” Rusty said. “One of the riders got bucked off and broke his arm.”

“Served him right.”

“We all thought that was the end of the dance. Know what Rusty did?” Grace said. “He yelled for the folks to grab a partner. ‘Here comes “Little Brown Jug” especially for those old boys who can’t hold their liquor,’ he said. Ever’body laughed and began to dance again.”

“Good for Blackie. I hope he got a nice bone when he got home.” Margie glanced at Rusty as she spoke, and saw that his face was turned toward her. He walked alongside them as if he could see each and every step he took.

“Blackie knows that I don’t see … well. One time he got between me and a grass fire. I knew it was there, but didn’t know how close it was until Blackie tugged on my pant leg. That was the first time we realized that my dog was aware that I couldn’t see.”

“That’s truly remarkable,” Margie exclaimed. “I heard about a dog who led a man out of a burning house and about a dog who jumped into a pond and rescued a baby.”

“Dogs are smarter than some people think they are. Back home Blackie knew words like ‘post office,’ ‘barbershop’ and ‘meat market.’ He could lead me there.”

“Will you play your fiddle for us some night?”

“Course he will.” Grace didn’t give Rusty a chance to answer. “He not only plays the fiddle, he plays the guitar, sings and writes his own songs. He’s working on one called ‘What I See.’ ”

“Ma!”

“He doesn’t like for me to brag on him. He’s goin’ to give me holy heck when we get back to camp.”

“When I was little,” Margie said, “my granny used to brag on me. It embarrassed me then, but now I realize that she did it because she loved me. Will you sing your song for me sometime?”

“Sometime,” Rusty replied.

“Were you raised by your grandma?” Grace asked.

“My mother died when I was small. Do you like writing songs, Rusty?” she asked, in order to change the subject.

“When I’m in the right mood. I’m going to miss listening to the radio while on this trip.”

“His songs are good, Margie. Wait until you hear them. They’ll bring tears to your eyes.”

Rusty waited until they were headed back to camp before he spoke again.

“You have to take what my mother says with a grain of salt, Margie. What mother would tell her son that his songs are not worth a cup of spit?”

“Some mothers or fathers would.”

They walked on in silence back to where Margie had joined them. “I’ll leave you here,” she said. “Maybe we can do this again sometime. It’s not much fun walking by yourself.”

“Sure we can,” Grace said.

“Good night, Margie.”

“Good night, Rusty.”

Chapter 3

P
ALE STREAKS OF LIGHT WERE SHOWING
in the east when Margie heard a noise at the end of the truck. Elmer was building a breakfast fire. The blankets he had used to make a pallet were folded and stacked on the camp chair.

“Morning,” she called, and went to the basin she had left on the box overnight. After washing and running the comb through her hair, she filled the coffeepot with water from the keg and set it over the blaze. While the water was heating, she lined a skillet with bacon strips, enough for both breakfast and the noon meal, and set it over the fire.

On her way to the pantry in the truck to get eggs and coffee, she glanced at the other camps. The Putmans were eating breakfast. Jody Luker was building a fire. Foley Luker came out of a small tent that had been set up near the edge of the woods.

It was daylight by the time breakfast was over and Margie had washed and put away the utensils. Elmer came around to check the tarp that covered the truck bed and to tie down the back flap.

The Putmans left the campsite ahead of them. Grace waved. Alvin tooted the horn. As Elmer drove out to the road, Foley Luker was taking down the tent. Jody and Mona were working at the campfire.

Because they had pulled out and left them, Margie wanted to ask Elmer if the Lukers would still be part of the caravan; but he had not said a word to her, and she had said nothing to him, since the morning greeting that he had ignored. She decided to ask him anyway, and if he didn’t want to answer, he wouldn’t.

“Are the Lukers still part of the caravan?”

“They’ll be along.” He pulled his pipe from the bib of his overalls, struck a match on the steering wheel and lit it.

“Where is the next campsite?”

“Oklahoma.”

“How far is that?”

“About a hundred miles.”

“Is it the goal to make a hundred miles a day?”

“On the flatland. Might not in the mountains.”

“I like the Putmans.”

“Don’t be flirtin’ with that blind boy, gettin’ him all hot for ya,” he said sternly. “His pa won’t stand for it.” He spoke around the pipe stem in his mouth.

When the import of his words soaked into Margie’s mind, she closed her eyes and fought a sharp battle to get her anger under control. But it blossomed.

“What do you mean by that?” she demanded.

“Just what I said. Stay away from him. He’d not understand a woman like you.”

“What do you mean, a woman like me? Do you think I’m some cheap floozy who’s out to get him in bed?”

“Yeah, I think that.”

“What!” she exploded. “Why you nasty, dirty-minded old reprobate. I wish I’d known what you thought of me before we left Conway. I’d not have ridden a mile with you.”

“Say the word. I’ll pull over and let you out.”

“You’d like that! And that’s just the reason I’m going to stick with you all the way to California.”

“Maybe you will and maybe you won’t.”

“You’d not dare put me out. What would your friends the Putmans think? Or the Lukers? That Sugar Luker is a floozy, if I ever saw one.”

“It takes one to know one.”

Angry, unguarded words spewed from Margie’s mouth. “I suppose you know about floozies. The one you married left you.”

“I married two,” he said calmly.

“Are you saying that my mother was a floozy?”

“She was a whore.”

Margie’s breath left her. When she was finally able to speak, she said two words. “You’re lying.”

He shrugged.

“You’re lying!” She shouted it this time.

He ignored her outburst and pulled into a filling station, got out and slammed the door. Margie was shaking. All her life she had heard little rumors that her mother had sown some wild oats before she married Elmer and settled down. No one had even hinted that she was anything but a pretty girl who attracted men like flies to a honey pot. Her granny had even said that her daughter was too pretty for her own good.

Unanswered questions floated around in Margie’s mind. If Elmer thought her mother a whore, he might be thinking that Margie wasn’t his daughter. Was that why he had been so indifferent to her all these years? Oh, Lord! Here she was at the mercy of a man who cared no more for her than he did for the old dog he’d left behind.

Margie stared out the window and waited for Elmer to finish paying for the gas and get back into the truck. She intended to take up the conversation where it had left off. Minutes after they left the gas station, the paving ended and they were once again on a gravel road. Traveling this one was like riding on a washboard. Dust flew up from the car ahead. She rolled up the window to keep from breathing it and decided to wait until they were on a smoother road and it wasn’t so noisy before she questioned him further.

It was almost noon when they passed off the gravel and onto the smooth paving. It was a blessed relief. Margie cranked down the window and enjoyed the breeze hitting her face. She was debating with herself on how to open the conversation with Elmer about her mother when she realized that the truck ahead was the Putmans’.

At the top of a small rise the Putmans pulled to the side of the road. Elmer stopped a few dozen feet behind them. As if she weren’t there, he got out of the truck and walked off into the woods with Alvin and Rusty. Blackie trailed along behind.

Grace came to where Margie stood beside the truck. “That washboardy road ’bout shook me to pieces.” She massaged the small of her back as they walked away together.

“I’ve traveled this road as far as Sayre, Oklahoma,” Margie said. “It’s mostly paved from Tulsa on through Oklahoma. We came to spots where bridges weren’t finished and we had to go around. In some places the creek was dry with a good sandy bottom, and we crossed without detouring.”

“Well, looky who’s here.” Grace nudged Margie with her elbow when the Lukers pulled up and stopped. “They got such a late start I was sure that we’d not see them all day. But they didn’t have to stop for gas. Foley told Alvin they filled up last night before they got to the campground.”